At the end of season eight’s “You Only Move Twice,” which aired in 1996, Hank Scorpio gives Homer the keys to the Broncos (“Broncos don’t have keys”), who then both sucked and blew. Nine years later, though, Homer apparently guided them to the Super Bowl, as seen in season 17’s “Bonfire of the Manatees.” They even won, beating the Seahawks 19-14. Those teams face off again this Sunday, in a game that’s sure to be louder than Al’s jacket. I’m not sure who’s going to win, except for America when this happens to Peyton.

That was the gag. That the show was animated before you knew which teams were playing and they did it in an obvious way….but that they threw in “Clinton” because of the impeachment question looming at the time.

It didn’t have to be done that way. They could have voiced it for any combination and just used generic mouth movements….they were shining a light on the animation process as a joke and getting a political shot in too. It was brilliant.

It’s a call back to when they used to dub over the Buffalo Bills opponent from Washington to Dallas when Fox ran reruns of Lisa the Greek back in the early 90s. If I remember right, they kept it as Dallas for syndication.

I know they were mainly know for being blown out in the Super Bowl, but they were still a consistent AFC power. fall flat to me. Honestly a franchise like the Seahawks or Cardinals (the Browns were just about to move to Baltimore) would have been my choice at the time.

But the Broncos appealed to everyone because they so badly failed on the national stage.

They were such a national joke back in the late 80s early 90s that, even as a kid who didn’t much follow football, the Broncos and Bills were punchlines.

So I think they went with Denver over Buffalo because they had already dipped in that well at that point (Homer’s fantasy about replacing Elway in the Super Bowl and running in for a touchdown….to narrow the score to like 56-7)